Ger­many ap­proves 4% rise in na­tional min­i­mum wage

Ger­many’s na­tional min­i­mum wage is to rise by 4 per­cent in Jan­uary, the first in­crease in the base pay level that was in­tro­duced at the in­sis­tence of Chan­cel­lor An­gela Merkel’s cen­tre-left coali­tion part­ners.

Merkel’s Cabi­net ap­proved yes­ter­day lift­ing the min­i­mum wage to €8.84 per hour [about dou­ble Malta’s min­i­mum wage] ef­fec­tive 1 Jan­uary. It’s stood at €8.50 since it was in­tro­duced in Jan­uary 2015. The in­crease was rec­om­mended by a com­mit­tee that will re­view the min­i­mum wage ev­ery two years. It con­sid­ers, among other fac­tors, the re­sults of in­dus­trial pay ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Ger­many was long one of few ma­jor West­ern in­dus­trial na­tions with no gov­ern­ment-man­dated na­tional min­i­mum wage. Merkel’s con­ser­va­tives op­posed it but the cen­tre-left So­cial De- mocrats in­sisted on it as part of the price for en­ter­ing her gov­ern­ment after a 2013 elec­tion.